


Saint-Véran

by Buttons15



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 01:18:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10776453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buttons15/pseuds/Buttons15
Summary: Sombra learns that the heart of the global conspiracy just might lie in a small town in France.Written for the Overwatch Writer's Guild April Challenge.





	Saint-Véran

**_First Omnic Crisis, October 7 th, 2042_ **

 

The little girl kicked the ball, following it down the deserted street. It was unusually quiet this early in the morning, not that many people lived in the village anyway. When tourists weren’t flooding in, life was quite peaceful in Saint-Veran, France. Perhaps because of that, there was no one watching her play; there were no real reasons not to let older children by themselves when crime rates amounted to zero.      

And so she followed her toy, past the simple yet cozy houses, past a couple hover cars, all the way past to the gates which welcomed visitors into the quiet little settlement. Her mother called for her later that day, but even when night fell, the girl did not return.

* * *

 

**_Present day, June 4 th, 2077_ **

 

Sombra placed her backpack on the luggage compartment and sat down, closing her eyes. It was easy to lose herself in the melodies of foreign languages and the sound of announcements coming through the speakers, and for a moment she could almost pretend she was traveling for fun.

Years of research had finally led her to this moment – the heart of what she had fondly nicknamed ‘the Sauron conspiracy’. She wasn’t sure what she expected when she began chasing it, but certainly it wasn’t that the world’s most dangerous organization would be settled in Nowhere, France.

Yet that was where her data invariably led, and she trusted her numbers enough to follow them, despite the tightness on her chest and the uneasiness that came every time she thought about what she was doing.

_I should have brought Gabriel or Amé along,_ she thought for the umpteenth time, then sighed.

Gabriel would have believed her – he was a conspiracy theorist himself – but she didn’t feel it was fair to drag him along her little adventure, not with how much Talon had been on his hair after three failed missions. And Sombra lacked the sheer cold-blood to ask Amelie to follow her back into France of all places.

There was someone else, of course, but the thought brought a scowl to her face and she shot it down immediately.

“Ladies, gentlemen and omnics, welcome aboard flight TP 307, destiny Paris, France –”

She made herself as comfortable as she could, setting the Interface on watch mode while she tried to get some sleep. It would be, in more ways than one, a very long trip.

 

* * *

 

“ _Omnic forces claimed the terrorist attacks in Berlin. Meanwhile, in London, troops under the name of Sector One have taken over –_ ”

_“_ Oi, Jean, you drinking that beer or not? _”_

He stared at the drink which grew warm on his hands and swallowed it with a single gulp. To his side, Pierre whistled, then refilled his glass.

“You worried about them bots?”

“About the tourists mostly,” Jean shrugged. “Not about the Toasters. The fuck would they want in this town anyway? Sightseeing?”

The war had dominated every conversation ever since it began, and of course he would be concerned. Yet the feeling of dread it brought was something scary, so he hid behind a mask of indifference and bravado, because maybe if he could convince others, then he could convince himself.

“It’s high ground,” Pierre slurred. He was never one to hold his drink. “That’s somethin’ good for war, right?”

It was, and the thought made the discomfort in his stomach grow stronger. He waved his hand dismissively. “Well, it’s high ground indeed, and right now, we hold it.” He took a sip, already feeling the alcohol haze over his thoughts. “We’d see them coming from kilometers away, and then we could… roll a big rock at them or something.”

Pierre’s eyes widened. “You’re right, man! You’re a genius!”

“See,” he lifted his chin, smug. “Nothing to worry about.”

“But, Jean,” his friend said after a while, drunken horror raw on his face. “What if the omnics are already here?”

_He’s a good man, God bless his soul, but he’s a bit dull in the head._

“Well, I don’t see no omnics, save for that Toaster down the grocery store.” The mere idea got a snort out of the two men. “And that one is as harmless as a vending machine, you think _that_ could get the best out of us?” 

Pierre only laughed in response.

 

* * *

 

Sombra stepped out of the cab, stretching. The hotel check in was automatic and didn’t take her longer than a couple minutes. As soon as she got into her room, she stripped out of her clothes and stepped into the shower. The accumulated weariness of the enormous flight from Dorado to Paris and then to Lyon gradually washed from her shoulders. She closed her eyes, focusing on the sensation of warm water droplets hitting her skin.

After a couple minutes, she felt it easier to breathe. Back on her hometown, they used to say the French only showered on Saturdays, but Amelie did it rigorously every day, so Sombra wasn’t sure if those stories were true. She didn’t care either way – she took her damn time, regardless of whether the staff would wonder.

Once she was done, she laid down in bed and stared at the roof. It took her a good ten minutes to finally shake off the feeling of unreality that had been sneaking up on her ever since she bought the tickets, and when she did, she was suddenly acutely aware of her drumming heartbeat.

_What’s gotten into you? It’s not like you to get cold feet._

And yet the panic on the back of her mind just refused to go away, seizing her thoughts when she least expected it. On an impulse, she took her phone and flicked it open – she could interact with the web directly from the Interface, but she found the exercise of typing to be soothing.

_> I’m in Europe,_ she texted, then instantly regretted it. She considered whisking the message away before the other could see it, but before she could decide, the phone beeped.

_< What’s the occasion? _

_> Business._

She covered her face with her palms and groaned, hating herself a little. Ziegler was a busy woman and she had no excuse to contact her, particularly after how things went the last time they talked. But she was needy. Needy and lonely and scared.

_You’re selfish._

_< I see. And what do you need from me?_

She hesitated. ‘ _I miss you,_ ’ she typed, then deleted it.

_> Nothing really. Just bored, I suppose._

There was no way in hell Angela would believe that. They’d known one another far too well.

_< Of course._

_> I’m in Lyon, _Sombra disclosed, desperate to keep the conversation going.

_> but I’ll leave early tomorrow for a little city nearby._

_> just, uh. Just wanted someone to know, just in case._

When the other didn’t answer for a full five minutes, Sombra stood and raided the hotel’s bar fridge. She turned on the TV so that the sound of human voices would trick her into feeling less alone. She almost didn’t hear when her phone vibrated again.

_< I see._

_Don’t cry_ , she scolded herself. And then she did it anyway.

 

* * *

 

“I’m just saying, Jean, that it’s not like us – like any of us. Well, maybe that freak Jules, but even him wouldn’t dare do it right behind our noses. It’s a small town, we all know each other, and well, who else would it be?”

Jean sighed, moving the boxes of supplies into the storage. He grunted with the effort, and lifted the weight with his knees, just like his grandma had taught him.

“Why would it, though?”

“Well, you never know with them bots,” Pierre handed him a bag of grain. “They do stuff cause they’re programmed or somethin’. Maybe it got a virus, you ever think about that? Maybe this whole war deal is just the Toasters with glitches.”

He didn’t know enough about computers to tell, one way or the other. He’d lived his entire life on the village, tending to the place’s only hotel, like his father and his grandfather before him, and so it had probably been way back to the town’s very founding in the Middle Ages.

Though he figured they didn’t call it ‘ _Ski Resort Molines Saint-Véran_ ’ back then.

Tourism had always been what fed the town – people came from other cities mostly to ski, and they usually dropped some of their euros visiting the church, the Soum museum and _La Vieille Maison Traditionnelle._  But with the war, Jean worried that not even the nature lovers who came every year to stare at the night sky in the observatory would show.

He restocked anyway, because it was the only thing he knew how to do, and because he would be purposeless otherwise. The concern, he shoved to the back of his mind, into a dark little spot that was quickly growing into a stain.

“A girl has gone missing,” Pierre insisted, and Jean had a sudden urge to silence the man with his fist. “And we are at war with _them_. Maybe we should just kick the goddamn thing out of town, yea? It’s the _enemy_ , Jean.”

The words resonated with something within him, something ruled by fear whose existence he refused to acknowledge.

“I don’t know, Pierre. That thing is pretty much made of legos anyway. Girl probably got lost in the woods. It happens. You know that.”

Saying those words brought a sour taste to his mouth.

“Whatever you say, boss.”

 

* * *

 

The drive to Saint-Veran would take about four and a half hours. Sombra knew that – she’d planned ahead of time – and she would have rented a car, but she woke the next morning feeling severely sick to her stomach, so she decided to delay the visit and stay in instead.

She had the first decent breakfast in what felt like forever, and then spent the afternoon playing games on her laptop. There was a twinge of guilt that gradually grew larger with every passing hour, until it finally morphed into a full blown panic attack and she found herself gasping and sobbing into her pillow.

Sombra lost track of time then. She wasn’t sure whether she slept or passed out, but when she came to, it was already morning. There was an unread text on her phone, and her hands shook as she unlocked it.

_From: A.Z., 23:47_

_< How have you been?_

 

* * *

_It is cold,_ Jean thought as he threw an overall and stepped onto the street.

Winters were always cold there, of course, what with how high the village was located. They were prepared to deal with harsh temperatures, too – _La Vieille Maison_ was a testament to that.  Even before heaters were a thing, the houses in town were built in an unique manner: very thick stone walls, to protect the buildings from fire, and then upper floors built on thick, stacked logs.

That architecture was one of the things that brought tourists over, together with the snow. Yet it was cold, but the people did not show up.

_It is only the second week,_ he reassured himself. People were scared, and so was he. Without the visitors, there would be no money, and the war had made prices shoot up considerably. And while the village had survived economic crisis before, they always did so by leaning back on nature and the old ways.

 Everyone in Saint-Véran knew how to revert to a simpler way of life: going out in the snow, hunting their own food and chopping their own wood, crafting and blacksmithing and he knew for a fact that most if not all villagers had the habit of stockpiling for the winter.

But it was _cold_. It was far too cold, and far too soon, and that made people uneasy.

He was on his way to work when he stopped by a commotion on the grocery store.

“The fuck out of our town, bot!”  An old men yelled. Jean recognized him as Luc, Pierre’s father.

“Just give me back my daughter,” a woman interrupted. “Give her back, where have you hid her? We’ve looked everywhere from here to Molines!”

“Ma’am, the girl’s disappearance is unfortunate, but –” the omnic tried.

“ _Unfortunate_?! It’s my daughter! What have you done to her?!”

“We know it was you, who else would it be?” Little droplets of saliva came out of his mouth and crystallized on the cold air. “We’ve seen you lot taking our children! You _machines_ respect nothing and you don’t know how precious a child is –”

“Hey,” Jean stepped in. “Hey!” he placed a hand on each of their shoulders. “Let’s leave it be,” he said, dragging the two away. “Not like it would be able to tell even if it was guilty – they can’t do anything they’re not programmed to, anyway.”

A little voice in his head told him that if that were true, then they wouldn’t be at war at all. Jean ignored it. The woman hid her face in her hands and broke into sobs. Jean guided the two into the nearest restaurant, rubbing her back and muttering soothing words on the way.

He hesitated before resuming his path to work, backtracking onto the grocery store. The omnic was still there, sweeping the entrance. “You should leave,” Jean warned. “You’re not welcome here.”

The omnic did not move.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_< So, how was your business trip?_

Sombra bit her bottom lip when the message popped up on the corner of her vision, turning the Interface notifications off with a flick of her wrist. She fished her phone out of her pocket, glad for the text yet wishing she could talk about literally anything else instead.

_> Didn’t happen. I felt sick in the morning, so I figured I could afford to give myself a couple days of rest._

_< You’re stalling._

_> You know me far too well._

It wasn’t a question. She couldn’t hold back a bitter grin, and then it turned into a tight, squeezing sensation on her chest.

_It’s not fair, what you’re doing to her,_ Sombra put the phone away, gritting her teeth. Of course it wasn’t fair, but she’d long came to the conclusion that she was a bad person – as opposed to Angela. Angela, who had every right to never want to look her in the face again, yet kept replying to her texts, solely because she was _good_.

_Probably made out of pure light, gold and kittens,_ she thought bitterly.

_< So I thought._

She felt the tears well up on her eyes again and pressed her lips together.

_> Do you think I could pay you a visit after I’m done?_

It was a mistake, but one she couldn’t help making.

_< I_

_< don’t know. I’m a bit buried in work._

_< text me when you’re free. We can see about that then._

_Oh._

She was suddenly overtaken by a fit of rage. She punched a wall, hard, the impact making her teeth clatter. The spike of pain that shot out from her knuckles to her elbow was both relieving and a nuisance.

Sombra buried her head on the pillow and yelled until her throat felt raw.

 

* * *

 

They were power saving now, not only Saint-Véran but the entire damned country. The omnics had taken over a power plant in what had to be one of the coldest winters France had ever seen, making electricity a resource in low supply and high demand.

And so the townspeople would gather after a day’s work in the village’s restaurants, and they would bunch up around the TV on the center of the room and watch together the news of the war. Jean knew, rationally, that the population was evenly distributed on the four bistros they had in town.

Yet to him it seemed to him that all three hundred people were around him every night, and the mere thought of a face was enough to summon its owner on a nearby table or corner. It was an eerie sensation, and it grew so overwhelming that it made him step out of _Le Guillestrin_ for a breath of fresh air.

Jean walked with no particular destination in mind, his feet sinking in the snow. His grampa used to say that the town a life and a mind of its own, one as ancient as the Alps themselves. It occurred to him that on that moment, without all the tech that usually occupied his thoughts, he could almost hear Saint-Véran breathe.

He stopped when he saw the _‘Welcome to Saint-Véran’_ sign, frowning, and shoved his gloved hands on his pockets. He was about to turn back and call it a day when something caught his eye – depressions in the sand that were unmistakably footprints, leading away from the buildings and into the woods.

Jean tilted his head and did what any curious and reckless twenty-something male would have done on his place – he grabbed the flashlight he carried on his backpack, flicked it on and followed the trail out of the town.

He traced the footsteps, cold seeping into his bones, his breath visible in white little puffs. Though he was hasty, he was not stupid – he knew the dangers of going into the wilderness alone at night, and he stopped as soon as he lost sight of the edge of the woods, hesitating. He was shivering so much his muscles ached.

_I should go back,_ he thought, yet his legs didn’t respond. He stared ahead instead, feeling strangely drawn by the darkness. Jean took a step forward, and then another, his feet moving on their own accord as if dragged by an irresistible magnetism.  There was a sense of urgency growing on his chest, stronger with each time he sunk ankle-deep in the snow, stronger with each scrape he got from the branches, and soon he was running –

_I’m going to die,_ he realized, his heartbeat roaring on his ears. _I’m going to lose my way on these woods and freeze and one day they will find my corpse, cold and oh-so-dead._

An image flashed on his mind’s eye, of the way they’d found his own parents, opaque pupils on wide open eyes, crystals of ice on the eyelids, fingertips blackened, and yet he couldn’t stop moving and moving, as much as he commanded his legs to turn around, as if his very body was no longer his –

He slipped and fell, hitting the ice hard. A moment later, his mouth was filled with the metallic taste of blood. Pain shot up his tongue, enough to make his eyes water, and he turned to the side and spat blood, cursing, his head ringing as if he’d just woken up with a particularly bad hangover.

His knees throbbed from where he’d hit them. He stood, shivering, pulling air in short little gasps.

_It’s the wine,_ Jean reasoned, opening and closing his shaking hands. _Probably had a glass too many._

He bent over to pick his flashlight up, glad that the blizzard had subsided. The pain brought out his rational, lucid side, and though the sense of imminent danger persisted, the panic dropped down a notch. It wasn’t snowing hard. He could still see his trail. It would be easy to backtrack.

He would be fine.

For an instant, as if to mock him, the flashlight flicked off and he was engulfed in absolute darkness. Jean learned right then just how fast his body could react with adrenaline. And then his light was back on and he broke into a sprint, this time on purpose, stumbling and tripping but never stopping, not until he saw the last tree and the beaten dirt road that would lead him right back into town.

He was on the very edge of the woods when he spotted something shiny in the snow. Bending over, he scooped it on his palm without thinking and without halting his walk. Only when he was home and with the door locked behind him the weight on his pocket finally registered, and he took the object on his hands to find a set of keys, a name on the keychain.

_Jules L.D._

 

* * *

 

The car keys jingled in Sombra’s pocket, a constant reminder of what she was avoiding to do.

_> Remember that business I told you about?_

_< Mm-hmm._

_> I just realized I don’t want to do it._

Sombra stared at the vehicle in question – a red hovercraft, old model. She never took new cars for her private investigations, mostly because she knew the odds were great that the automobile would be returned in pieces, if at all.

_< Then don’t._

_Don’t,_ she thought to herself. _Don’t do it. Take the car and drive to Zurich instead. See the girl. Beg her forgiveness. Tell her you love her._

_> I have to._

She opened the door and got in the car, the pillows on the seat worn out and hard.

_A.Z. is typing a message._

She’d fallen for her, hard, because how could she not? She’d read up on her before, shuffled through her emails even, had a folder on her dirt just like she had on everyone else, but she hadn’t really understood why they called the woman Mercy until they met on the battlefield.  

She fell for her then, on the very moment they met, on opposite sides of a fight, her face the first thing Sombra saw after coming back straight from hell. She fell for her right away, wondering how many had done so on that same situation. It was cheesy, but Sombra was a cheesy woman and she didn’t care.

She fell for the doctor again the night after, when she showed up on the flat’s doorstep to check on her wounds, and then again one week later, when Sombra sought her out herself to thank her and because _she had a crush, damn it._

She fell for Overwatch’s angel every single day after that, for that reserved smile and flustered blush whenever Sombra said something romantic-yet-ridiculous. She wasn’t perfect, oh no, she was stubborn, sometimes even a bit cruel, and she’d done her share of morally shady decisions, but she was _good_ and that was enough.

Sombra went on and broke her heart, because she had a gift for ruining good things just like that.

She hit the car horn with her head, honking it.

_Just do the thing,_ she told herself. _Do it, and you’ll be free to pursue whatever._

And then she thought about what exactly she was dealing with – a being so powerful it had led her around for decades, something powerful enough that it pulled the strings on omnics, government and terrorists with the same ease, something so dangerous and scary she refused to tell anyone about for fear they would either be endangered or be with the enemy. Sombra couldn’t help but think she was being led into a trap, and yet she felt she had no choice but to investigate.

_Or dead,_ she added. _I’ll be free or dead._

On that happy note, she started the car and drove.

 

* * *

 

It was no surprise to him when the communications fell, cutting them off from the world. It wasn’t the first time that had happened and it wouldn’t be the last, but in all the years before, Saint-Véran could have counted on support that came from Lyon, who kept the villages around under monitoring when the weather got that bad and always stepped in to restore contact.

Yet Lyon was surrounded and cut off, so the townspeople knew they’d have to make do by themselves. Despite how high tensions were running, they helped one another out. Not a single person would go without food or fuel when someone else had any to spare – in trying times, the true good really did show on people’s hearts.

Unfortunately, that was also true for the opposite.

Jean was chopping wood for the heating fires when it happened.  It started off as a faint buzzing  sound which he was quick to dismiss, until Pierre lifted his head and pointed up, yelling. Something metallic hovered above him, something he’d only seen before in the news.

_It’s a drone,_ he realized one second too late.

The distinct sound of a plasma gun going off rung, echoing through the mountains. A moment later, he felt warm pain shoot through his shoulder, extending like tendrils up his neck and down his arm. The smell of burnt flesh hit his nose, and he saw a blackened, smoking hole on his shirt.

He vaguely registered Pierre next to him, pulling him along. Jean covered the wound with his free hand, ignoring the uncomfortable warmth on his palm, and realized he couldn’t move his other arm.  Another shot. He waited for the pain to come, but it didn’t, and then something fell next to him with a dull thud, and his brain put the pieces together.

Pierre was dead. Of that, there was no doubt, what with the way the plasma shot had gone right through his skull, melting down the eyeball and bits of bone. He moved on instinct then, ducking, letting go of his arm to grab a piece of chopped wood. He turned to the drone and threw, missing by a wide margin. Still, it was enough to make the machine miss.

Another gunshot went off, this time loud and explosive, and the drone fell to the ground. There were hands on him then – the other villagers who had heard the commotion and taken the drone down. Words reached his ears but found no meaning in his mind.  He shook the others off, grabbing his axe, and walked to where the robot had fallen.

Jean hacked away at it, screaming, until he felt dizzy and sick to the stomach. His head felt light and before he could pass out, he sat down on the snow.

_Splash._

It was blood, either his own or Pierre’s, he could not tell, but probably the latter. Someone, he didn’t see whom, wrapped a bandage around his shoulder. And then he saw it – the omnic. It was there, hanging on the corners of the crowd, and all Jean could think right then was _how dare it._ Blind fury brought him to his feet again, driven by all the fear and hatred that had been long eating away at him ever since this war first began.

Jean landed the first blow, but the fear was universal, and soon enough other villagers joined, hitting the omnic with whatever they found – rocks, wood, even snowshoes. He used his axe once more, leaving dents on metal and cutting through wire, his heart pumping with exertion. The omnic might have screamed. If it did, it only fueled the terrified people further.

They let him have the finishing strike, the one that would sever the metallic head from the head pipes. He lacked the strength to make it cut clean through, instead disconnecting the head only partially. He lurched forward, oil making the weapon slip from his hand, watching with a mixture of horror and euphoria as the LED eyes flicked off for good.

The last thing Jean heard before blacking out was someone else yelling, _“The girl is back!”_

 

* * *

 

It was past midday when Sombra finally got out of the car, her stomach growling. She had no trouble at all in finding a parking spot in front of the resort. Stretching, she stood under the sun for a moment, letting the light touch the back of her nape and the shaved bits of her head. It was cold, nothing like the scorching sunlight on Dorado.

_This sun is an imposter,_ she thought bitterly.

She hated the place. Her internet signal was choppy, the streets were still made of cobblestone and everything looked medieval. Though from a small town herself, Sombra was a woman of big cities and new tech, of neon lights and bright colors and cars and loud noises.

She pulled out her phone for comfort and on an impulse, extended her arm and took a selfie.

_> It’s hard to breathe without all the CO2 on my lungs._

The picture took an entire three minutes and fifty two seconds to upload. Sombra literally could not remember the last time she’d seen ‘ _2G_ ’ on a phone.

_< That doesn’t even make sense._

_> I am an entire new, evolved species._

_< Homo homo irritantus._

Sombra grinned.

_> Now you’re the one not making sense._

There was still the ghost of a smile on her lips when she walked into the building.

“Hello,” the clerk, a man in his twenties, greeted with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “My name is Jean, and I hope you’ll enjoy your stay!”

 

* * *

 

He winced when the toothbrush fell of his hand, cursing. There was medical technology enough to either fix the nerve damage on his arm or replace it with a prosthetic, he knew, but he’d have to go to an urban center for that, and there was no way of knowing just when that would happen. He’d have to wait for spring at least, and that was if the damn omnics didn’t blow up Lyon in the meanwhile.

He tried to keep his arm alive by forcing it to move with the good hand, though he didn’t know whether that would help at all.  Still, it kept his mind busy, away from thing he didn’t want to think about. Things like how his best friend was dead. Things like the mysterious return of the girl.

They’d found her on the border, alone and wandering, almost three months after she’d vanished. There was no logical explanation for how she’d survived that long or how she’d found her way back, and when asked, the girl claimed she did not remember. The parents were overjoyed, of course. Jean himself, not so much.

He couldn’t shake of the sinking sense of suspicion every time he looked at her, so he avoided her instead, and without Pierre to drag him to social events, he got out less and less. He walked to the kitchen, opened a cabinet and grabbed a bottle. The whiskey kept him warm in more ways than one.

Jean finished his glass in a matter of seconds, appreciating how the liquid burnt in his throat. Outside, knee-deep snow covered the streets. One of the things people never told about long winter was just how maddening the sheer absence of things to do could be. He had no power to waste on entertainment, he didn’t want to go outside, and with his arm messed up, he couldn’t even work his restlessness away.

All he had to pass the time was a couple books he’d read a hundred time, his bottle, and his thoughts, which more and more seemed to betray him.

_The girl is back,_ something within him whispered. _The girl is back and you killed an innocent._

“It’s not a person, for fuck’s sake,” Jean spat. “It’s like feeling guilty for breaking a dishwasher. Besides, they shot first.”

He moved to take another sip and realized the glass was empty. When he reached out for the bottle, his hand brushed on something – the keychain, which he’d forgotten on top of his counter.

_Huh. I thought I had returned this._

His memories on how that came to his possession were foggy at best, but he was glad to have an excuse to leave the house. He picked them up and pocketed them, and the sound of their clicking triggered something in his brain. He had flashes – of footprints, of woods, of running in panic and how awfully suspicious it had been when he found those –

_You’re being paranoid. You were drunk then, and you are drunk now._

Without thinking, he pushed the door open, having to force his way through the snow. The air was cold enough to hurt his lungs, aching more the more he moved, and he regretted his impulse to leave without even grabbing a coat.

He rushed his way to Jules’ door instead, ringing the doorbell. When there was no answer the third time, he slid the key into the lock and stepped in, if only to escape the cold. Jean knew something was amiss as soon as the unbearable stench hit his nose.

He’d never paid much attention to Jules, nothing beyond the occasional distaste at the man’s eccentric behavior, but even so he could tell there was something terribly wrong going on. No human being could possibly live like that.

Jean stepped over candy wrappers, empty bags of chips and discarded soda cans, looking for the light switch. The lamp buzzed into life, flickering. Jules was in the room, sitting in a corner, curled into a ball. His ears were covered by his palms and he was muttering something incomprehensible.

He hesitated. “Jules? Are you all right?”

_Stupid question._

Carefully making his way through the trash, he approached, never taking his eyes off the other. He could see Jules’ bones poke out from under his skin, his eyes sunken.

“Hey, man, are you –” he put his hand on the other’s shoulder. It was a mistake.

 He backpedaled when Jules jumped on him, pushing away with his good arm. The man screeched, clutching a knife between bony fingers, his pupils wide and dilated.

“Dude what the fuck are you even on –”

Jules lashed out with the blade and Jean dodged as best as he could, his jeans taking the blunt of the damage. He had no choice but to fight back, kicking. He met unexpected little resistance when his feet connected; Jules flew back and hit the wall with a _crunch,_ his spine bending at an impossible angle.

_Holy shit._

“It wears her face,” Jules croaked, his fingers twitching. “ _Her face her face HER FACE_ –”

The words turned into a hoarse croak, and then a fit of coughing, and when Jules finally went still, it was only because he wasn’t breathing anymore.

 

* * *

 

She set the phone carefully, leaning it against the rail, until the front cover more or less captured her entire face. Once she hit play though, she found herself at loss of words. Sombra stared at the camera for what felt like hours until she finally gathered her guts to speak.

“Hola, ángel.” she took a deep breath. “I...”

She was sitting on Saint-Véron’s observatory. From up there, she could see what seemed like the entirety of France. In the distance, Lyon’s busy streets were bustling with activity, cars and hovercrafts zipping by. She rubbed her arms – even in summer, even with her coat, it still felt too damn cold.

“I’m sorry.”  Sombra bit her bottom lip and looked at the horizon. “I miss you. God, I miss you so bad. I know nothing about this is fair in any way and I… I’m really, truly sorry.” She tried to hold back her words, but now the feelings were out there was no stopping them. “I told myself it was for the best, that I had to leave you behind to chase my ghosts, but…”

She forced herself to look back into the camera and sighed. “I’m in Saint-Véran, France. It’s four and a half hours from Lyon. Medieval little city, one of the highest villages in Europe. I’m not sure…why, or how, but that’s where all my leads pointed, and so that’s where I am.”

“I hate it.” She shoved her hands on her pockets and shifted on her feet, uneasy. “I’ve been here for five days now, and I’ve found nothing concrete. Nothing but a constant sense of wrongness I can’t quite pinpoint.  Life here is slow and peaceful, and the villagers are happy. Too happy, if I might say so. It’s a bit eerie. But the conspiracy I was looking for? _Nada_.”

She stood still for a long moment.

“It’s a relief, really. I searched, I found nothing. And if there’s really nothing to be found, then maybe I was wrong.” Sombra held on to that twinge of hope. She allowed herself to dream it. “Maybe I am free. But my gut tells me otherwise, you know? And I’ve learned to trust it.”

She wished it. She wished it desperately. “I’m going to leave today, if I can. I’ll take my car and drive and I won’t stop until I’m by your door. I’ll bring you flowers and chocolates and I’ll beg you to take me back, and if you don’t, I’ll beg you to forgive me at least. But, here’s the thing – I found nothing, yet something tells me I won’t be allowed to leave.”

Sombra reached out for the phone, took it in her hands and stared at the screen.

“The walls in my hotel room are too thick for any signal to pass.” A humorless laugh escaped her throat. Sombra realized her hands were shaking. “I’m scared. Terrified, really. This is a dead man’s switch, angel. If you’re watching this, it means I haven’t connected to the web in twenty-four hours, and well… you know me. You know what that means.”

She lived off her connections. If she spent that long away from the web, then odds were she was not alive at all.

“On the unfortunate event that you’re hearing this, then, you’ll receive all my findings. You’ll finally know what exactly I am up against… or well, as much as I know, anyway. I’m not sure myself. And what you’ll do with it… is really up to you.”

She didn’t want Angela to pick up her task, she realized. She didn’t want her to go through what Sombra had gone – the paranoia, the deceit, the nights of sleep lost. She wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy, let alone on the woman she loved. But she felt an obligation to share it anyway.

“I guess the one reason I’m doing this is… I owe you that much. An apology and an explanation, at least. And if I’m not going to be able to do it live, then I’ll at least make sure the message goes through.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated for good measure. “And… I love you. See you when I see you, ángel.”

She stopped the recording and programmed it the way she needed it. She didn’t take the phone back with her, instead hiding it under a floorboard. It would wipe itself out if she didn’t come for it, but not before sending her video. It was a safety measure. If something happened to her, her web or her Interface, if something didn’t work, then the video would still be sent, in a simple yet effective manner.

She allowed herself to hope on her way back. She’d always been an optimist at heart.

 

* * *

 

He’d freaked out. He’d run. And now he laid in bed, awake and horrified.

_You killed a man._

No one knew it was him. No one had seen it happen, and no one knew he had the keys to Jule’s. The man was an oddity, a town freak. No one would be looking for him for a long while, and when they did, there would be no way to prove his guilt. If anything, what with the way he’d been malnourished, they’d assume it was a mixture of cabin fever and a harsh winter.

He told himself those things, and still he couldn’t rest.

_You killed a man._

He realized he was crying. The squeezing sensation in his chest grew unbearable, and he hopped from the bed and ran to the bathroom. His stomach was empty, but he retched until he could taste the bile on his mouth.

_I need a drink._

He stumbled to the kitchen, his head drumming, promising himself he’d keep a bottle on his bedroom from then on – more often than not, he needed an eye-opener as well as something to lull him to sleep. The gust of cold wind that hit him on the way stopped him dead on his tracks.

_What the fuck_.

The door was open – the house door. He was sure he locked that. One hundred per cent sure. He walked over to it, but there were no signs of it being forced. The keys were right there, on the lock. A rush of adrenaline. His blood roared on his ears.

_Am I going insane?_

A very distinct sound of something hitting the floor came from behind him, and he turned as fast as he could, but there was nothing to be found. He was afraid – though not sure of what, exactly. They were snowed in – there were no robbers in town. No crime in Saint-Véran.

_Except for that one murder._

Something within him snapped. “Who is it?!”

There was, of course no answer. He slammed the door shut behind him and turned the lock, this time twice for good measure, then grabbed the nearest object – a lamp – to use as a weapon. He tried to raise his other arm to shield his face but it hung limp, useless.

It struck him then and there just how vulnerable he was.

“Who’s there?! This isn’t funny!”

_It’s him,_ his brain stated with unwavering certainty. _It’s Jules and he’s back to take his revenge and he’s going to kill me –_

Again, something fell, this time on the kitchen. He gathered his guts and walked in that direction. “If you don’t show up, I’m going to have to hurt you!”

He walked in and pressed the light switch with his shoulder, not taking his eyes from ahead, not moving his weapon hand. When he saw the intruder, he froze out of sheer shock, the lamp slipping between his fingers.

“…Pierre?”

But that wasn’t quite right – little things were off. One of his eyes, the one which had been shot, had no pupil. The hair on that side of the face grew a couple shades too light. His smile was empty and emotionless, and the _teeth –_

_It’s wearing his face,_ he thought incoherently, a dead man’s words ringing on his memory.

And then the world went black.

 

* * *

 

“Leaving so soon?”

Sombra’s hand slipped, turning her already messy signature into a scrawl. With her concentration broken, it took her a whole five seconds to remember exactly what fake name she was going by this time. María something or other.

She put on her best friendly smile. “It’s a lovely town, but I miss the urban chaos already.”

The clerk, Joan or Jean or something she couldn’t quite remember, handed her over the papers. She took them, her heart drumming. The Interface was disconnected from the web, which made her very much uneasy. Still, it looked like she would be allowed to leave after all.

She didn’t want to turn her back to the man but there was no other way of leaving without looking terribly strange, so she acted as natural as she could, grabbing her backpack. Sombra was halfway to the door when the man called her back.

She halted, completely immobilized.

He’d called her by name – _her_ name.

“Do you mean me?” she queried, holding her breath. “My name is María, señor.”

The man didn’t answer, instead smiling in a way she could only call predatory.

“I’m… going to go,” she announced, already reaching in her coat for her guns.

“But you’ve only just come home, Sombra…”

_What the hell is he talking about?_

She hadn’t lived that long by hesitating. She pulled her weapons out, pointing one at him even as she reassessed her surroundings. She would have shot, too, except this man had suddenly turned into her only source of information, the one proof she didn’t come all that way for nothing.

“Who are you?”

“I think you know,” he replied, and his eyes _flickered_ , bringing her to the stunning realization that they were not at all human but rather very perfect imitations.

“You’re It,” she said, retreating. She made sure she had her back to a wall. “The Thing. The Sauron.”

It laughed at that, it laughed with a human voice and a human throat and a human –

Another man stepped out from a side door, a large guy she recognized as the clerk’s assistant. _“We are,”_ they said in perfect synch. A chill ran through her spine.

_What the fuck._

“ _What_ are you?” She lifted her left hand to point the gun at the newcomer, tracking them both with her eyes. The Interface was not connected to the web, but the combat augmentations were offline ones, and they kicked in, highlighting the two men’s heat signatures.

“We are the future,” Jean took a step forward. “We are the next step in evolution. Neither man nor machine, but the perfect balance between the two.”

She looked outside, and her heart all but stopped. She was more than just surrounded – she was trapped. Around the resort, what had to be the entire population stood in a circle, blocking her exit.

_Fuck._

“And what do you want from me?” She talked. She stalled for time.

“An answer,” a third voice replied from the floor above her.

“Oh, I’m glad we can talk about this.”

They smiled, the same movement at the same moment. Jean placed his palms together as if in prayer. “We’ve tried many times,” they made a wide gesture, showing the creatures around them. “And we have been successful in every aspect but one.”

She waited. She had no way of knowing just how many bullets each of those things would take to die.

“Our hybrids are perfect, yet they lack what we appreciate about humanity the most – the drive. The creativity. The _soul_.” They faced her then, their eyes blanking entirely into pure white. “How did you do it?”

“How did I do _what?_ ” she hissed, looking for an exit, finding none.

“How have you blended yourself with machine and yet kept your essence?”

Her only answer was to pull the trigger. The bullets hit him, ripping through skin and wires alike, a grotesque mixture of oil and blood oozing from the wound. A sound of metal hitting metal rung when the bullets hit the skeleton, and his face fell into a expressionless blank.

“ _So be it,_ ” hundreds of voices sounded in unison. _“We will find out.”_

She managed to take a good dozen of them down before she ran out of bullets, and then they swarmed her, until she was immobilized. Adrenaline made her strong, but it was still no match for whatever the hell these things were made of.

_“_ You’re one of us, _”_ Jean said, approaching her, and the dread of that statement was indescribable because she knew in her heart that it was _true_. As repulsive as the idea now seemed to her, she’d done it – turned herself into something else, something mixed and unnatural and just as wrong as the beasts before her.

And she’d done it to counter them. They made her that way. Unwittingly, she had become what she fought against. What was that stupid quote from one of Amelie’s damn nihilist books?

_He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster._

She met their not-eyes, and now every single one projected that first symbol, the one she’d associated with a cheesy pop culture at first, but which now was nothing short of horrifying. She stared at them with fear, loathing, yet at some deep level, acceptance.

_And if you gaze for long into an abyss…_

_“Welcome home, prodigy child.”_

**Author's Note:**

> _screams like a madwoman who wrote 9k words in two days_
> 
> I hope this is horror, because I meant it as horror, cause when I looked at the population count of 300 on the little city all my urban ass could think was "OH NO THE DREAD"
> 
> Special thanks to the friends on OW writer's guild and the MM discord who helped me out with this thing! <3


End file.
